In 2010, we spent our summer holiday in a cottage in Killarney, County Kerry, Ireland. There was a young Dutch family with a teen son and a younger daughter in the cottage next to us. The teen son wore a Che T-shirt.

I remember that upon seeing that kid, I felt sad...

... so sad that more than 50 years after the son of a bitch died in the Bolivian jungle, he still had such an appeal.

It would have been impossible for Guevara to retain that attractive status had it not been for the enthusiastic aid of his countless admirers in the media, schools and universities, and what passes for the "cultural" sector.

Here's a modest wake up call about that scounrel - a YAF video courtesy of Townhall:

Again via our pals at Gates of Vienna, a video documenting a raw awakening for the staff at the Berlin HQ of the DGB (Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, German Federation of Trade Unions). Caution, this video may already be one year old but it's as poignant and relevant, even more, as it was then:

Thursday, October 08, 2015

Yet another unmissable sign of fatal western decline, the world's first openly lesbian bishop, Eva Brunne, has proposed to remove crosses and other Christian symbols from a quayside church for seamen in Stockholm to make it attractive for muslims. I'm NOT going to write 'it doesn't get more insane than this' because at the rate Sweden goes totally bonkers I fear we haven't even gotten beyond the intro to the drama. Breitbart reports:

"Eva Brunne, who was made the world’s first openly lesbian bishop by the church of Sweden in 2009, and has a young son with her wife and fellow lesbian priest Gunilla Linden, made the suggestion to make those of other faiths more welcome.

The church targeted is the Seamen’s mission church in Stockholm’s eastern dockyards. The Bishop held a meeting there this year and challenged the priest to explain what he’d do if a ship’s crew came into port who weren’t Christian but wanted to pray.

Calling Muslim guests to the church “angels“, the Bishop later took to her official blog to explain that removing Christian symbols from the church and preparing the building for Muslim prayer doesn’t make a priest any less a defender of the faith. Rather, to do any less would make one “stingy towards people of other faiths”.

"Bishop" of Stockholm Eva Brunne. Another false priest. Why don't you remove that cross and replace it with a crescent, you lunatic woman?

The bishop insisted this wasn’t an issue, after all airports and hospitals already had multi-faith prayer rooms, and converting the dockyard church would only bring it up to speed. Regardless, the announcement has aroused protest.

Father Patrik Pettersson, one of the priests in her diocese and active in the same parish as the Seaman’s mission church has hit back in a blog of his own, complaining there is no way you could equate a consecrated church with a prayer room, remarking “I should have thought a bishop would be able to tell the difference”.

Calling the bishop’s words “theologically unthinking”, he asked what was to be done with crucifixes screwed to the walls, and heavy items such as baptismal fonts.

“Ignoring the rhetorical murmuring”, Pettersson wrote: “The only argument bishop Eva really put forward in support of her view is ‘hospitality’… How do you respond to that? Not much of a basis for discussion, as one colleague put it. The theological, ecclesiological, pastoral and working issues are left untouched”.

The actual priest at the Seaman’s mission was left nonplussed by the comments of the Bishop when contacted by Dagen.se for comment.

As an independent mission the church operates outside of the diocese, and so the bishop has no authority there, a fact reflected by the response of the church director who said the bishop’s words were her business alone.

When asked whether she would be removing the cross from her church, Kiki Wetterberg responded: “I have no problem with Muslim or Hindu sailors coming here and praying. But I believe that we are a Christian church, so we keep the symbols. If I visit a mosque I do not ask them to take down their symbols. It’s my choice to go in there”.

The upper echelons of the Church of Sweden, much like other national churches across Europe, seem to be fully invested in the diversity mission. Back in February, a parish church in multicultural paradise Malmö declared it would be holding a service in solidarity with the local Muslim community as a protest against a march by anti-Islamisation movement PEGIDA in the city.

The priest responsible told media: “During the protest, the Swedish Church is going to hold a service where we express joy for our city and our Muslim friends.

“There is strong support for diverse cultures in Malmö and it is important that the church is there to support that”.

Malmö is Sweden’s gateway to Europe, and is the main point of ingress to the Nordic nations for the thousands of migrants travelling through Europe from Africa and the East who have decided to make it home.

As a major bottleneck into the region, with a single bridge and ferry route connecting the country to the rest of Europe, the arrival of these migrants has heralded an unprecedented level of criminality in the city, as explained to Breitbart London by a recently retired senior police officer last month. Describing the ‘no-go’ zones that have sprung up around the city and calling for greater border controls to get criminal migration under control, Chief Superintendent Torsten Elofsson said:

“Years ago you could go with two officers, no problem. Now you have to send four officers and two cars – if the fire brigade want to go, they have to take a police escort. They throw stones and try to stop the fireman from putting out fires.

“They sabotage the police cars. You can’t leave them unguarded – when you come back to it you find the windows smashed and the tyres deflated. It isn’t quite a no-go zone, but we have had to develop special routines to go there”."

Tuesday, October 06, 2015

Turkey's would be dictator visited Brussels to attend Europalia, a major annual arts and cultural event highlighting a different country and/or culture each year. This year the focus is on Turkey, and the Belgian state invited Erdogan to the festival. Given the civil war on Turkey's southern border, this was to be more than a cultural visit and talks with the Belgian government, with European Council President Donald Tusk, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, and European Parliament President Martin Schulz were also scheduled. To top it off, a visit to the Belgian King, Philippe I, was also planned.

The Turkish delegation behaved in an appalling way.

Not only was Erdogan his usual arrogant self, holding an impromptu electoral meeting before between 2,000 and 3,000 AKP supporters on top of a tourist hop on/hop off bus adorned with the Turkish flag. How they were able to commandeer that vehicle is beyond me. Anyway, on November 1 there's general elections in Europe and Erdogan used the opportunity to cater to supporters abroad (the Turks here as elsewhere are allowed to vote in Turkish elections, see how wonderfully integrated they are). But to every self-respecting Head of State, it should be crystal clear that, at least outside his or her country, he or she has to maintain a strict neutrality and act as the president of all his subjects. What Erdogan did is simply not done, he should have upheld at the very least a semblance of impartiality. But then his was simply a replay, be it on a smaller scale, of a visit earlier this year in the province of Limburg.

Photo courtesy The Wall Street Journal.

Then his wife found it necessary to go shopping in Brussels' prestigious Louizalaan/Avenue Louise.... with an escort of around 7 black vans with bodyguards, completely blocking all traffic. Thousands of Bruxellois, expats, tourists... suddenly got stuck in their cars, buses, trams because Madam Erdogan needed a handbag or something. It could have been worse for them: those people present in the shops she visited were unceremoniously rushed out:

Omen of things to come? Erdogan's sour, ugly bitch of a wife tries to kill Belgian Queen Mathilde with her eyes on the Europalia event. The grey-haired man with the blue tie behind her is the Belgian King, Philippe I.

And then finally, as Sultan Erdogan had his own private army of security officers with him, there were a couple of brushes with Belgian security services and State Security officers. The Turks behaved in an immensely arrogant manner, litterally challenging the Belgian officers. At one point, a Turkish bodyguard crudely shoved a Belgian policeman aside...

... and that was apparently a bridge across the Bosphorus too far. The man was quickly taken in a vise grip and wrestled to the ground. Thereafter things calmed down a little, although tensions between both services remained high during the entire visit, which lasted from 4 to 6 October.

To sum it up, the Turks behaved in a miserable way, absolutely scandalizing their host. I hope that this visit opens many eyes... especially those of still far too many fools who would like Turkey to become part of the EU.

Monday, October 05, 2015

For non-military types: the F-35 basically comes in three variants: the F-35A with conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL), the F-35B short take-off and vertical-landing (STOVL), and the F-35C with carrier-based Catapult Assisted Take-Off But Arrested Recovery (CATOBAR).

The F-35 A is the type the Belgian Air Force needs to replace its ageing F-16 fleet, originally 132 strong, now down, alas, to a paltry 54 planes. Count on the socialists and greens to champion thirty year old designs such as the Gripen, the F-18 or the Rafale - provided you could force them somehow to buy any fighter at all, cause what they really would like to do is abolish the entire Army, Navy and Air Force and with the money thus freed heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelppppppp them poor black people still suffering from colonialism and racism.

No, the F-35 is nearing maturity. Seven years too late, but let it be that way. Unlike the USN's LCS, there's no turning back. Now the type must live up to its promises, and it's got a far better chance at that than the Little Crappy Ship which is basically dead in the water already - no pun intended. Heck, the only other type that would, imho, be a serious contender, is the Eurofighter Typhoon but even that one is 4 1/2 generation at best.

Nope, it's got to be the Lightning II to equip the BAF in the future. Most scenarios plan a replacement fleet of 35 units.

Sunday, October 04, 2015

Watch this amazing underwater footage shot by Nick Hope around the Fiji Islands and Tonga. I know all those banners on my site can be a pain in the *ss, but there's no way I'm gonna dispense with my fancy Vlaams Belang logo or the sympathetic Dr. Kermit Gosnell. Click in the upper left corner so that you can see it directly under YouTube.

The title of the video, Dakuwaqa's Garden, refers to a god from Fijian mythology, more precisely the Shark-God. Fishermen worshipped him because he protected them at sea. Normally, you should see, in the lower right corner, fourth from the right, the CC button. If you press it you can find where the footage was shot and/or what species were being filmed at the time.

Fiji is an island state consisting of over 332 islands in Melanesia in the South Pacific, around 2,000 kilometers northeast of New Zealand. To the west is Vanuatu to the west, New Caledonia is to the southwest, Tonga is to the east, the Samoas and France's Wallis and Futuna to the northeast, and Tuvalu is to the north.

Of those 332 islands islands, only 110 are permanently inhabited, and 87 per cent of Fiji's population of around 860,000 love on the two main islands, Viti Levu and Vanua Levu. Suva, the capital and largest city, is on Viti Levu. Smaller urban centres are Nadi (tourism) or Lautoka (sugar cane industry).

Fiji boasts one of the most developed economies in the Pacific due to prodigious natural resources (forests, minerals, fish). Currently its main sources of income are tourism and sugar exports.

In case that, after having watched this video, you'd like to go there as well, here's a handy map with dive sites:

Marine ecologist and dive instructor Helen Sykes has some info on what to look for where:

a.) North & West of Viti Levu

The Coral Coast, Mamanuca & Yasawa Islands

The best for casual and relatively new divers: easy diving, very few currents, schools of small colourful fish, most sites are relatively shallow (best diving generally in less than 50 feet/ 15 metres of water).

b.) The Bigger Small Islands

Recommended for the more experienced divers who can handle currents and deeper diving at least some of the time: spectacular soft corals, pristine reef systems, and larger fish life.

Southern Vanua Levu for walls and soft corals. Namena for absolutely everything concentrated into one package.

d.) Northern Vanua Levu

Cakaulevu (The Great Sea Reef –the third longest barrier reef in the world!)

Dramatic outer walls and passages.

Limited fish life in some areas, and outer waters can be rough. Inner reef mangrove islands have poor visibility but extensive fish life of interest to specialists and ecologists. Kia Island provides a good and sheltered bay to base while exploring.

e.) The Eastern Archipelago

Lau Islands: scattered islands with varied diving. Relatively easy conditions, but there are fewer well-known dive sites, so most is exploratory diving with some areas better than others.